Additive technologies wherein a material is incorporated in an object made via such technology are known in the art. US2013303002, for instance describes a three-dimensional interconnect structure for micro-electronic devices and a method for producing such an interconnect structure. The method comprises a step wherein a backbone structure is manufactured using an additive layer-wise manufacturing process. The backbone structure comprises a three-dimensional cladding skeleton and a support structure. The cladding skeleton comprises layered freeform skeleton parts that will form the electric interconnections between the electric contacts of the interconnect structure after a conductive material is applied on the backbone structure. The support structure supports the layered freeform skeleton parts. Parts of the support structure may be removed to isolate and/or expose the electric interconnections. The cladding skeleton can be embedded by an insulating material for providing a further support. Amongst others, the cladding skeleton parts form a single connected tube that is cladded on an inside surface by flushing a plating fluid trough the tube for forming the electric interconnections.
Additive manufacturing (AM) is a growing field of materials processing. It can be used for rapid prototyping, customization, late stage configuration, or making small series in production. For 3D inkjet printing or dispensing, a liquid monomer mixture may be used and by photo polymerization the shape is then fixed before the following layer is deposited.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,700,406 discloses an method for manufacturing an article wherein a cavity if formed by jetting droplets of liquid build material onto a platform, and wherein the cavity is filled with a curable material to form a solid portion of the article
Most of AM technologies produce objects with mechanical properties inferior to that of objects produced by conventional manufacturing processes. For instance, in-plane and out-of-plane mechanical properties of AM structures may be inferior to injection molding (IM) structures/materials due to high anisotropic behavior of these objects. Further, low in-plane properties are a result of the heterogeneity of the structure. For example, in Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM), the heterogeneity is caused by the shape of the fibers and the voids in between the fibers. This induces e.g. localization of deformation in the fiber, possibly leading to fiber fracture, and possible detachment of fibers. Yet, low out-of-plane properties are a result of the heterogeneity of the structure and of the process: due to the time difference (and thus temperature difference) in the layer-by-layer processing, the adhesion between layers is lower than the adhesion between fibers within the layers. Hence, not only the deformation is localized in the fiber and the fibers detach, but also the layers (partly) detach. Especially the inelastic properties suffer from these occurring phenomena (as we are talking about fiber fracture and detachment which do not occur in the elastic regime).